Trucker gets 34 years in immigrant deaths

SUSAN CARROLL, Copyright 2011, HOUSTON CHRONICLE |
January 24, 2011

A federal judge on Monday resentenced the truck driver responsible for the deadliest smuggling attempt on record to nearly 34 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal sentenced 40-year-old Tyrone Williams to a 405-month term in connection with the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants in Williams' insulated tractor-trailer truck in May 2003.

Williams broke down before Rosenthal pronounced the sentence, crying and calling the deaths an "accident."

"I live with regret every day of my life," Williams said.

The immigrants died while Williams was transporting them from Harlingen, in the Rio Grande Valley, to Houston. Williams never turned on the air conditioning in the compartment where the people were held, and temperatures rose as high as 173 degrees.

Williams initially faced a possible death sentence, but a jury in 2007 sentenced him instead to life in prison without parole. In August, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back for resentencing, saying Williams was not eligible for capital punishment and his sentence on the 19 counts should have been decided by a judge, not a jury.

Rosenthal said that in reaching Williams' sentence, she considered that Williams ignored the pleas of a passenger in the cab of the truck who said she heard banging coming from the trailer.

Rosenthal said it was clear that Williams neither intended nor wished for anyone in the truck to die. But his "callous and ultimately devastating omissions" cost 19 people their lives and exposed many more to harm, warranting the lengthy prison sentence, she said.

Rosenthal previously had sentenced Williams to 20 years for 19 other counts of transporting illegal immigrants and to 405 months on a conspiracy count, which was upheld by the appellate court. All of the sentences will be served concurrently.